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So, given the current 40k timeline, the Birth of Slaanesh happened around M29-M30, and it spurred two things;

1) The fall of the Eldar civilization, devolving into Dark Eldar, Exodites and Craftworld Eldar.

2) The clearing of the warp storms from around Terra and the start of the Great Crusade.

So, my question is this, why, in the currently expanding Horus Heresy fluff, isn't there a lot more references to the Eldar? Surely they should be everywhere, since before the fall they had a galaxy spanning civilization of supertechnology? Shouldn't they be bumping into huge groups of Eldar fleeing the fall, or at least ruined Eldar settlements, etc...?

I've heard that the Eye of Terror itself is the old Eldar civilization, if that is the case, did they all just get sucked into the warp, apart from the above mentioned survivors?

Basically, I feel like there should be a ton more Eldar related stuff popping up given how close it was to the start of the Great Crusade, but whenever they're described, it's like the Fall happened millennia ago, even when it was only a few hundred years (not so long if you're Eldar...).

Maybe they're just staying out of the Legions way. A space marine legion led by a primarch is pretty scary stuff!

 Kajata wrote:

So, my question is this, why, in the currently expanding Horus Heresy fluff, isn't there a lot more references to the Eldar? Surely they should be everywhere, since before the fall they had a galaxy spanning civilization of supertechnology? Shouldn't they be bumping into huge groups of Eldar fleeing the fall, or at least ruined Eldar settlements, etc...?

Not really, Eldar did have many colonies but the main core of their civilization and empire was their homeworlds. The fact hat 90% of Eldar died when Eye was born proves that most of their race lived there. They are not like Humans to be spread all over the galaxy but they concentrated almost entire species in one point. Big mistake...

I've heard that the Eye of Terror itself is the old Eldar civilization, if that is the case, did they all just get sucked into the warp, apart from the above mentioned survivors?

They all died when they created Eye and Slaanesh feast on their souls.

Basically, I feel like there should be a ton more Eldar related stuff popping up given how close it was to the start of the Great Crusade, but whenever they're described, it's like the Fall happened millennia ago, even when it was only a few hundred years (not so long if you're Eldar...).

Not really, their entire empire was gone and their race almost got extinct. Those handful of survivors couldn't do anything more on galactic scale.

They had the webway. There was no need for the eldar to spread out to take advantage of resources. The only eldar thereby that lived on worlds where they would be isolated and, GASP, discomforted were the exodites(read amish) who rejected eldar society of the time.

There was also many more craftworlds than known today. Many of these craftworlds despite escaping eldar homeworld space were still too close and were killed by slaanesh. This indicates that the psychic shriek of slaanesh's birth traveled a huge distance perhaps even overlapping where the current craftworlds are located after 10 000 years of travel.

The shriek even went so far as to almost get into the webway and the fall knocked parts of the webway out. This collapse of transportation stranded many worlds which are still being rediscovered. On top of this without specific cultural adaptations eldar readily die (well for eldar) due to Slaanesh nibbling away at their souls and using their own intense emotions against them. So if they are not D.eldar, CW.eldar, or exodites they cannot really form a stable culture that will self replenish (i.e the last group are corsair which do not self replenish).

Additionally, keep in mind the eldar never were what humans would consider populous as they consider humans like orcs in that they breed and multiply like vermin. They had the webway and technology/psychic powers that made them masters due to being able to destroy any enemy that gathered before they could ever even move out against them due to precognition/instant travel.

Finally the IoM moved out and were cleansing the galaxy of even sub human and ab human populations the eldar were broken and reeling but still extremely stealthy, precognitive, and fast. They would have never even let humans see them unless there was benefit for them.

 ansacs wrote:

Finally the IoM moved out and were cleansing the galaxy of even sub human and ab human populations the eldar were broken and reeling but still extremely stealthy, precognitive, and fast. They would have never even let humans see them unless there was benefit for them.

The Crusades purpose was conquest of lost human space and reunification. Extermination was something that was just done on the way. And the Imperium accepts abhumans.

The Rise of the Imperium isn't what concerns me most with the current eldar timeline.
What I think is silly is that humanity's Golden Age of Technology now was supposedly concurrent with the height of the eldar empire - who would have curbstomped humanity without batting an eyelid.
But GA humanity is still described as peerless, which is silly, as the Eldar at their height had no one even close to their mastery of technology.
(Necrons don't count, they were all asleep at the time.)

It'd make more sense to have the Fall occur somewhere between now (M3) and M10, methinks.

Golden Age of Technology Humans based their technology on the Necron's own technology via the Void Dragon, so it's not as silly as you think. Necron technology easily surpasses even that of the Eldar; apart from the Webway and psychic engineering, the Necrons and the Golden Age Humans had far superior technology.

Bran Dawri wrote:

It'd make more sense to have the Fall occur somewhere between now (M3) and M10, methinks.

Yeah, before I actually sat down and looked at the 40k timeline, I had always assumed the fall of the eldar and the height of their civilization was when humanity hadn't really reached the stars. They're described as ancient a whole hell of a lot, which seems weird if they basically run on the same timescale as humanity.

Bran Dawri wrote:The Rise of the Imperium isn't what concerns me most with the current eldar timeline.
What I think is silly is that humanity's Golden Age of Technology now was supposedly concurrent with the height of the eldar empire - who would have curbstomped humanity without batting an eyelid.
But GA humanity is still described as peerless, which is silly, as the Eldar at their height had no one even close to their mastery of technology.
(Necrons don't count, they were all asleep at the time.)

It'd make more sense to have the Fall occur somewhere between now (M3) and M10, methinks.

Kajata wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:

It'd make more sense to have the Fall occur somewhere between now (M3) and M10, methinks.

Yeah, before I actually sat down and looked at the 40k timeline, I had always assumed the fall of the eldar and the height of their civilization was when humanity hadn't really reached the stars. They're described as ancient a whole hell of a lot, which seems weird if they basically run on the same timescale as humanity.

I'm replying to the both of you:

The fall of the Eldar is the event that properly destroyed their empire and nearly wiped out their race.

Now one doesn't create a Chaos god in an instant. So the Eldar were already decadent and hedonistic before. The hedonism and decadence began long, long before the fall happened. It was going on at the time when humanity was slowly expanding across space. So its probable that the Eldar didn't even notice humanity or anything for that matter as they were too busy fapping to themselves and enjoying life.

They had their(Eldar) robotic units do the fighting, guarding and etc for them. Its probable that these robots destroyed any invaders into Eldar space thus allowing the Eldar to continure their hedonism undisturbed.

Also look at the below from the 5th edition Dark Eldar codex:


M18 is when humanity is stated to have developed the Warp drive. And already the Eldar are being decadent though not all of them but it starts affecting them all soon. Its likely that the Eldar didn't even notice humanity and humanity was smart enough not to irritate the Eldar and instead focus on crushing or killing or making peace with everyone else.

What does decadence and hedonism have to do with technological powerlevel?
If it was before the Fall proper, decadent or not, the Eldar would still have access to their most powerful and destructive technologies, rather than the relatively minor armaments of their trade vessels (ie, the Craftworlds).

Though it's possible GA humans did actually sneak about the stars so as not to piss off the Eldar, that's a far cry from the glorious unopposed conquest of the galaxy we're led to believe the GA of Technology represented.
They most certainly did not have technology surpassing the Eldar at their height.
"The stars themselves once lived and died at our command."

Bran Dawri wrote:

"The stars themselves once lived and died at our command."

Uh-huh...and the Necrons could do that too. And still do, in fact. Look up something called the Celestial Orrery.

In any case, my point is that Golden Age Humans based their technology on that of the Necrons, so Golden Age Humans probably and did have the technology to kick Eldar ass if they had to. They just had no reason too; Golden Age Humans were colonizers and explorers, not conquerors like the later Imperium. Even Imperial technology at it's height during the Great Crusade was only a mere shadow of what the Golden Age Humans had.

Bran Dawri wrote:
What does decadence and hedonism have to do with technological powerlevel?

uh...nothing. I didn't say anything about technology level. So what are you talking about?

If it was before the Fall proper, decadent or not, the Eldar would still have access to their most powerful and destructive technologies, rather than the relatively minor armaments of their trade vessels (ie, the Craftworlds).

And?

Though it's possible GA humans did actually sneak about the stars so as not to piss off the Eldar, that's a far cry from the glorious unopposed conquest of the galaxy we're led to believe the GA of Technology represented.

Did you even read my post? My supposition or whatever you call it is that the Eldar stopped paying attention to what went on in the greater galaxy cause they are too busy being hedonistic and decadent.

Also, Space is fething big! Humans didn't need to sneak around. Just stay away from the areas that are controlled by the Eldar which seeing as the majority of Eldar are in the core worlds and in the Webway is very easy.

They most certainly did not have technology surpassing the Eldar at their height.
"The stars themselves once lived and died at our command."

Is this supposed to be impressive to DAoT humanity?

cause they could do that too as posted below:

taken from the 40k 6th edition rulebook. And just in case, this first showed up in the 5th edition rulebook.

Sounds like a Human-adapted version of the Necron Celestial Orrery to me

"Gentlemen, a toast! To the glory of our noble ancestors during the Golden Age of Technology!"

I'm willing to bet that Golden Age of Technology Humans had access to Power Armor more efficient than any Mark developed by the Adeptus Mechanicus, 'safe' Plasma Weapons as the standard infantry armament, grav-tanks and jetbikes outfitted with energy shields and laser weaponry, personalized shielding, and so on. And now we have proof that Golden Age Humans could blow stars up on a whim as well...as I've said, apart from the Webway and psychic engineering, the Golden Age Humans stood on par (if not superior considering their technology was based on Necron technology) with the ancient Eldar.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
[ They just had no reason too; Golden Age Humans were colonizers and explorers, not conquerors like the later Imperium. Even Imperial technology at it's height during the Great Crusade was only a mere shadow of what the Golden Age Humans had.

Do you really think that all those worlds settled by humanity during the DAoT era just happened to be empty?

Also from the 6th edition codex:

For the rest of the age,Mankind spread across the stars,becoming widely dispersed and divergent.There is evidence of
many wars,but none that threatened the stability of human space. The existing records List xenos enemies long since
extinct, along with more familiar names such as Eldar and Orks. Interplanetary trade was established and great fleets
carried goods to and from the ends of the galaxy. As planets became overpopulated, the recently invented construction
mediums of plasteel, plascrete, ferrocrete and rockcrete were used to build colossal cities: the proto-hives.

I'm pointing out the bold. Its possible that they were wiped out by the Imperium. But its also possible that they were wiped out by DAoT humanity.

Hmmm, good point. And considering the awesome technological prowess at their disposal, only the Eldar and the Orks would have been a real threat against the Golden Age Humans.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

I'm willing to bet that Golden Age of Technology Humans had access to Power Armor

Possible. Also possible that DAoT humanity let their machines(Iron men) do the fighting for them.

Ah yes. The infamous Iron Men. Golden Age Humanity's greatest achievement, and their own downfall: AI-controlled replicas of the same Necrons they based their technology on.

Still, the rebellion of the Men of Iron was only one cause of the Golden Age's end, and after the destruction of the rebellious AI, I'm sure the Golden Age Humans put their minds and technologies to close the gap caused by the loss of their war mechs.

I remember long ago there was a thread on this, it was about 60 pages long, anyway to summarize it.

We looked at how far humanity had spread through the galaxy, it was everywhere, on galactic terms it surrounded the pre fall eldar empire, we gained.this info by looking at the star map and previous fluff on the heresy and re uniting humanity.

This lead us to believe that.humanity would have.and indeed did have technology equivalent or superior to the eldar, had they not they could not have spread so far, border skirmishes would have happe

Admiral Valerian wrote:Hmmm, good point. And considering the awesome technological prowess at their disposal, only the Eldar and the Orks would have been a real threat against the Golden Age Humans.

Orks were probably only considered a threat due to how many of them there are. But Waaghs could be easily crushed by DAoT humanity. Eldar were probably treated with respect and avoided if they if DAoT humanity even met them at all.

Admiral Valerian wrote:Ah yes. The infamous Iron Men. Golden Age Humanity's greatest achievement, and their own downfall: AI-controlled replicas of the same Necrons they based their technology on.

Still, the rebellion of the Men of Iron was only one cause of the Golden Age's end, and after the destruction of the rebellious AI, I'm sure the Golden Age Humans put their minds and technologies to close the gap caused by the loss of their war mechs.

Agreed.

DAoT humanity was brought down by a list of events happening at relatively the same time. The events are, in no particular order:

1] A.I rebellion
2] Warp Storms
3] Psykers appearing everywhere and with them daemon possession and so on
4] Alien races predation
5] Human on human civil war.

Here is a list of info compiled about DAoT human tech: http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/daot-humanity-tech-source-thread.244762/

I remember long ago there was a thread on this, it was about 60 pages long, anyway to summarize it.

We looked at how far humanity had spread through the galaxy, it was everywhere, on galactic terms it surrounded the pre fall eldar empire, we gained.this info by looking at the star map and previous fluff on the heresy and re uniting humanity.

This lead us to believe that.humanity would have.and indeed did have technology equivalent or superior to the eldar, had they not they could not have spread so far, border skirmishes would have happened but I doubt full scale war as both sides would have been relatively peaceful, had they not I do not believe the fall would have happened as the eldar would be too embroiled in a full scale war, humanity would not be as widespread either for the same reason.

Another factor to this.was the arrogance of the eldar, they would never allow themselves to be surrounded by an enemy so completely unless the enemy was technologically on the same level or superior, look how they treated the orks.

If not for the Webway and their psychic prowess, the Eldar would have been nothing against Golden Age Humanity. Oh well, one can't have everything I suppose...

In any case, I'd like to point out that number two was actually the 'birth pains' of Slaanesh, and as such are the fault of the Eldar, and number four is indirectly a result of Humanity unable to reinforce its frontier because of inferior FTL and the Warp Storms making hell. Humanity would have recovered from number one soon enough, and the Emperor (of course, he wasn't Emperor then) would have dealt with numbers three and five in his own way at the time.

 Formosa wrote:

Another factor to this.was the arrogance of the eldar, they would never allow themselves to be surrounded by an enemy so completely unless the enemy was technologically on the same level or superior, look how they treated the orks.

They probably knew they would win against the Golden Age Humans because of their advantages, but it would a victory so hollow that the Necrons would probably awake right then and there.

I doubt they could win against da humans, humans had them surrounded, outnumbered, and they had comparable or superior tech

You guys should check out the SB link I provided. It allows one to gleam some idea of what DAoT humanity was capable of.

 Formosa wrote:
I doubt they could win against da humans, humans had them surrounded, outnumbered, and they had comparable or superior tech

They had the Webway though. And psionics. Game breakers...

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
I doubt they could win against da humans, humans had them surrounded, outnumbered, and they had comparable or superior tech

They had the Webway though. And psionics. Game breakers...

Yeah. Psionics not weakened by Slaanesh plus the Eldar gods.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
I doubt they could win against da humans, humans had them surrounded, outnumbered, and they had comparable or superior tech

They had the Webway though. And psionics. Game breakers...

Yeah. Psionics not weakened by Slaanesh plus the Eldar gods.

But in everything else, it was like facing the Necron Empire in it's heyday. BOOM BABY! HUMANITY ROCKS!

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:

"The stars themselves once lived and died at our command."

Uh-huh...and the Necrons could do that too. And still do, in fact. Look up something called the Celestial Orrery.

In any case, my point is that Golden Age Humans based their technology on that of the Necrons, so Golden Age Humans probably and did have the technology to kick Eldar ass if they had to. They just had no reason too; Golden Age Humans were colonizers and explorers, not conquerors like the later Imperium. Even Imperial technology at it's height during the Great Crusade was only a mere shadow of what the Golden Age Humans had.

Careful with our leaps in logic Admiral.

Human technology during the Golden Age was not based on the Necrons even remotely. The Emperor sealing the Void Dragon on Mars was not about stealing Necron Technology... it was about him needing a source of intelligence in his machines without using actual AI and repeating the historical mistake of eventually creating the "Iron Men" again. The Void Dragon literally is the machine spirit present in the various war machines throughout the Imperium.

Also, the Necrons never possessed a technological advantage over the Eldar or the Old ones. They may have been equal at best, but never better. The Necrontyr were literally swept aside by the old ones (and their pets the Eldar). Once the Necrontyr became the Necrons, they had metal bodies, but still would have been unable to even bother the Old Ones had it not been for the C'tan. The codex all but says the C'tan did most of the work in the defeating the Old Ones. The Silent King realized that once the Old Ones were gone the C'tan would eventually feast on his own people, struck first and "shattered" the C'tan by suprising them... but he was still unable to destroy them.

The role of the Eldar in the war with the Old Ones is virtually undocumented other than to say that the Old Ones were killed. They may (or may not) have possessed even greater technology than the Necrons that would have won them the war had the C'tan not been involved.

En Excelsis wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:

"The stars themselves once lived and died at our command."

Uh-huh...and the Necrons could do that too. And still do, in fact. Look up something called the Celestial Orrery.

In any case, my point is that Golden Age Humans based their technology on that of the Necrons, so Golden Age Humans probably and did have the technology to kick Eldar ass if they had to. They just had no reason too; Golden Age Humans were colonizers and explorers, not conquerors like the later Imperium. Even Imperial technology at it's height during the Great Crusade was only a mere shadow of what the Golden Age Humans had.

Careful with our leaps in logic Admiral.

Human technology during the Golden Age was not based on the Necrons even remotely. The Emperor sealing the Void Dragon on Mars was not about stealing Necron Technology... it was about him needing a source of intelligence in his machines without using actual AI and repeating the historical mistake of eventually creating the "Iron Men" again. The Void Dragon literally is the machine spirit present in the various war machines throughout the Imperium.

Also, the Necrons never possessed a technological advantage over the Eldar or the Old ones. They may have been equal at best, but never better. The Necrontyr were literally swept aside by the old ones (and their pets the Eldar). Once the Necrontyr became the Necrons, they had metal bodies, but still would have been unable to even bother the Old Ones had it not been for the C'tan. The codex all but says the C'tan did most of the work in the defeating the Old Ones. The Silent King realized that once the Old Ones were gone the C'tan would eventually feast on his own people, struck first and "shattered" the C'tan by suprising them... but he was still unable to destroy them.

The role of the Eldar in the war with the Old Ones is virtually undocumented other than to say that the Old Ones were killed. They may (or may not) have possessed even greater technology than the Necrons that would have won them the war had the C'tan not been involved.

I agree for the most part, however it is infact documented in mythic form, this is where we get the story of khaines burning body, vauls anvils, the newcron codex has not changed any of these events, just added necron personality to it all.

Just as a reminder, khaine fought the nightbringer, he defeated him and destroyed its body, it's scream of rage put the fear of death in every iBing being and shards of its body bored into khaine giving him his molten body, this is all myth

Hmm, don't have time to post a lot about this but I totally disagree with anyone saying that DAOT humans were anywhere on par with the tech level of the Eldar before the fall.

The current Eldar codex disagrees with anyone who says otherwise.

Page 4 of the Eldar codex says:

"The Eldar held dominion over a large portion of the galaxy"

it also says:

"Their technological and cultural achievements excelled those of all other races"

and goes on to say:

"No other race had posed a serious threat to their wealth and stability for countless millenia"

those few lines totally contradict anyone saying humans had equal or better technology as the Eldar excelled those of ALL other races. It's in the current and most recent codex, its canon as far as can be canon with GW and it has not been ret conned or changed. Eldar win that debate.

The eldar codex would of course say that, the guard, space marine codex's dont really go into it.

What we're doing is a leap of logic, we look at the fluff (such as it is) from dat, look at the reunification of humanity and can Sammies that for humanity to have expanded to such an extent without the eldar stopping them, they must have been comparable, otherwise humanity would not have existed, the eldar would have swatted them like a fly.

You would never willingly allow an enemy to surround you on all fronts unless there was a threat of mutual annihilation, eldar controlled the stars, da humans could make them super nova.. Swings and roundabouts